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'Perhaps humankind can't bear too much reality, but neither can it bear too much unreality, too much abuse of the truth.' (Saul Bellow)

'448 OMAR KHAYYÁM Omar had a personality; I, for better or worse, have none. In an hour I’ll have strayed from what I am at this moment; tomorrow I’ll have forgotten what I am today. Those who are who they are, like Omar, live in just one world, the external one. Those who aren’t who they are, like me, live not only in the external world but also in a diversified, ever-changing inner world. Try as we might, we could never have the same philosophy as Omar’s. I harbour in me, like unwanted souls, the very philosophies I criticize. Omar could reject them all, for they were all external to him, but I can’t reject them, because they’re me.' (F Pessoa)

'Mrs Glass looked over, abstractedly, at the blue bathmat, across the tiled floor. Zooey stood as still as possible, in order not to break her mood. "You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes," Mrs Glass said to the bathmat, then turned again toward Zooey and gave him a long look, with very little, if any, morality in it. "Regardless of what you may think, young man," she said.' (JD Salinger)

'Art only begins where imitation ends.' (Oscar Wilde)

'"I like zooey's blog," Steiner would say, "It's the only internet site with a foyer. Saul and I often meet there, by the ethereal kiosk. The ice-cream is splendid."' (ThetisMercurio)

'What is the use of telling people repeatedly that the Society is not a sect and then behave as if it were one?' (Steiner)

'Laughter means distance. Where laughter is absent, madness begins. The moment one takes the world with complete seriousness one is potentially insane.' (Jens Bjørneboe)

'If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.' (Oscar Wilde)

'Let's act like sphinxes, however falsely, until we reach the point of no longer knowing who we are. For we are, in fact, false sphinxes, with no idea of what we are in reality. The only way to be in agreement with life is to disagree with ourselves. Absurdity is divine.' (F Pessoa)

the basics

the posts on this blog are written by alicia hamberg, with the guidance of mr dog, canineosophist, and with inspiration from rudolf steiner, anthroposophist, and the rest of our friends, people, dogs and various strange beings who hang out with us in this extraordinary ethereal kiosk

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an otherwise quite ordinary afternoon

This happened to be the day the Waldorf movement decided to give waldorf critics a marvellous gift they could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. Cautionary note: the following account is, inspite of appearances, not entirely fictional.*

An afternoon at the offices of the Swedish Waldorf School Federation. Three faithful waldorf warriors are working diligently to promote important causes such as holistic education, the saving of childhood and the maintenance of spiritual values in schooling (that is, rephrasing the spiritual facts to make them attractive, or at least palatable, to the general public). Suddenly, the silence is interrupted.

– Listen up! ‘…I consider PLANS, as internet terrorists… Mr Dugan ends his posting with a comment on the posting by me that he has hijacked from the private mailing list, being one of the many persistent internet terrorist acts of his, untruthfully stating…’ … ‘The “Protocol of Steiner” myth in question is mainly based on the works of a left wing activist, Peter Staudenmaier, creating and laying a forgery as the foundation stone of his works as non-academic, self appointed “historical scholar”, repeatedly mixing truths with untruths in what he writes on anthroposophy.’**

– What?!

– Please! Don’t you remember we talked about this? How we really need some guy who can read the akashic records.

– Yeah…

– Don’t you see? ‘…another smearing untruth by Dan Dugan… malicious by PLANS’ digging into the mud hole of accusations… the malicious way PLANS cultivates and nourishes this criticism… It is the same type of argumentation referring and appealing to feelings connected with atrocities in the past, that was cultivated and made into a motivating force of the war in the now former Yugoslavia in the 1990s’, and the same type of painting the Devil on the wall that now is used mutually by Usama bin Laden and President Bush…’ This author is clearly capable of reading internet websites in the light of higher spiritual truth!

– Who is he?

– Sune, who calls himself a bee. Yet another sign of his high social value.

– You mean, he’d be delighted to work hard and selflessly toward collective purposes?

– It would require small rewards, I suppose, but it seems like the kind of individual who’d put in much effort promoting the aims of our movement. For almost nothing in return. Just look at what he’s done so far! For example, hear these insightful facts gained through reading the records of higher wisdom: Staudenmaier ‘…gives repeatedly incomplete and untruthful descriptions… the serious lack of academic expertise… constitutes an insult to the concept of “historical scholar” with which he habitually likes to describe himself… the article just made it up out of his speculative imagination… repeatedly has tried to create different smoke screens to cover up for his untruthfulness…the extremely light hearted, distorting, unreliable carelessness and untruthfulness… well documented obvious history forgery…demonstrates his not only the unpredictable complete unreliability… Had Staudenmaier been the “scholar” he likes to picture himself as, he probably would have been kicked out of University for his forgery and stories… he can continue his games and make up stories, admired, published and supported by the small anti-Waldorf group PLANS in San Francisco…’

– St Francis? Of Assisi? Who’s Staudenmaier? I don’t understand this.

– It’s a complete crook, apparently… Don’t ask so many questions, dear. Have you done enough spiritual work to allow yourself to cast doubts upon the spiritual research of experienced anthroposophists?

– …

– No, just what I thought. Besides, nobody — I say nobody — would be capable of seeing truths like these without serious training: ‘Since 2007, “Northernrefugee39″***, an intense talkative professed atheist, socialist and republican, and former Steiner Waldorf mother …, with very little patience for what she thinks are “boring” discussions, has been pursuing a persistent and repeated anti-Steiner school crusade at Mumsnet in cooperation with a “barking”. … After reregistering at Mothering in April 2009, she in October continued a trolling campaign there in the Waldorf discussions, under another pseudonym, posting insinuating slander and promoting extensive defamation and libel of Steiner Waldorf education, but was banned (again) and the trolling removed … Last year (2009), she also continued her anti-Steiner crusade with comments on a number of blogs on the net, posting as “Cat Green” and “Boco”, launching her anti-Steiner missiles like a Hamas fraction of the WC-group trying to defame Steiner Waldorf education and anthroposophy with links to among others the repeatedly twisted republished first work by a “Peter Staudenmaier” who plays a similar role to “waldorf critics” as David Irving to anti-Semites.’

[A third person joins the discussion.]

– What are you two talking about?

– I think I’ve found just the guy we need. You know we talked about it, but we just couldn’t think of anyone with the right qualities.

– Wow! Let me see! … ‘mythologies, xenophobia and demonizing witch hunting’ … ‘witch hunt diatribes … crusade’ … ‘untruthfulness’ … ‘defamatory’ … ‘in a similar way that Usama bin Laden is trying to do in the Islamic world against USA and the West in general’ … ‘the general hysterical spirit of the criticism, defamation, smear and libel cultivated by the core critics’ … Wow! This blows me away through its rigour, honesty and its apparently deep connection to underlying reality. We must have this guy on board our ship.

– Yes, exactly. Someone who knows how to navigate hostile waters. And if you think about it, it’s the best gift we can give to the materialists. With Sune as a member of our team, his insights will help us to heal the materialists — although you’d have to put it in a multi-incarnational perspective… as always, as always. Think about the coming epoch.

– Is that why he follows them around?

– Yes, of course. Obviously. If you read between the lines, you’ll soon notice his unbounded compassion for humankind, his vast empathy with individuals… the caring he shows everyone. ‘Let your soul bloom in love…’ oh, isn’t it beautiful. He also knows his Steiner. Sublime. Divine.

– Perfection is possible in some human beings.

– Oh it is. It is. And, despite their flaws, we have a duty to assist even the materialists with love, for the sake of their reincarnating spirits. If needed, against their will, as they experience it, but they’re in a state of clouded awareness, unable to grasp what is known to a seer…

– I understand as much. But will people really understand?

– You’re confusing things. Are you still expecting people to understand? The world isn’t at that stage yet. People are stuck in the materialistic paradigm. They have not attained higher consciousness. They even deny the existence of spiritual worlds! Oh dear! You can’t possibly expect people in general to understand.

– We must still keep working. We must strive harder than ever… to counteract the spiritual ignorance manifested in modern man…

– And if you think about it, in the grand cosmic scheme, this surely is a great gift we’re giving to mankind.

– You mean, defending waldorf education against the hate-groups, crusaders and witch-hunters?

– That. And also, in more general terms, taking a stand for truth gained through clairvoyant vision. We can’t lose track of this. We must genuinely progress.

– Hunting down the beasts while healing those who can be healed?

– Yeah. Look, at the overwhelming, and frankly heart-warming …

[wipes some salty moist from the corner of the eye with a pinkish silk cloth]

– … compassion he shows for ‘a girlish, nice, intelligent and sensitive, but bitter former Waldorf pupil’, noting the tragic personal soul pathologies as ‘obsessive’, ‘difficult’… it’s all there, on the internet, as a testament to his compassion.

– Including all those details and figures and numbers and statistics and mental health issues and academic achievements… Oh, look, it says this person posts comments on all other blogs about waldorf on the internet just to link to their own blog. Could this be true? I haven’t seen theses comments? If they are as ubiquitous as implied…

– But are you reading with an open mind, dear?

– You mean they’re there but I must work more on my spiritual seeing to see them?

– Well, yes. I have a feeling some dimensions are still closed to your consciousness.

– I take your word for it then. In any case, there’s no need for us to read what this person writes, really, when we can have The Bee do it for us, right?

– Correct. We should get to work. How do we arrange his employment?

– I’d say we’ll bring him in full-time to start immediately.

– No no no. Part-time only, we’ll only pay him to do the monitoring of debates, blogs and twitter. He must retain a generous amount of spare time.

– Yes, we need him on several accounts, but we also need him to separate his roles. We can’t possibly make it official that we hire him to follow these people around. What would people think if they knew…

– … being as they are, stuck in materialism…

– … we hired him to take an active part in helping critics work out their karma, as it were?

– Still, we need him to collect personal information about people — preferably from the akashic records or via clairvoyant insights, but of course, everything duly verified, according to the standards of research generally applied in the higher worlds… — …and post it on the internet. It is really helpful. In the grand scheme of things. People will thank us in their next incarnation. Unfortunately this means we have to endure less appreciation than we deserve, in this incarnation. We — I mean we as in ordinary representatives of the Waldorf Federation — can’t personally give these former waldorf students and parents the treatment they need to work through their personal karmas. It won’t look good in the eyes of the world, if our part in it is too visible. Yet we know they need it. And I believe we can trust our new recruit to take care of all the details. In his spare time.

– What about…?

– Do not write this down. I repeat, do not write this down.

– What about possible ethical implications…? Could we not get in trouble for involving ourselves in this?

– Not again! You exhaust us! Didn’t I tell you too stop reading all those books and papers? They’re not good for your spiritual path, not at the stage you’re at. Why do you think it is that the world doesn’t understand the real needs of our time? Because people insist on collecting information and viewpoints which have no basis is spiritual reality. It’s a downward path, I tell you. We need spiritual renewal, and you keep reading books about… what did you say it was… materialistic ethics?!

– Maybe she should leave the room while we discuss the details of the requirements on our new employee…

– Yes. I think this would be for the best. These are sensitive issues. I’ll give you a verse to meditate on, dear, while we finish this talk… Or you could count the money in our stash. We need to know what we’ve got. … [inaudible mumble] Yeah yeah, don’t complain. It’s still buried by the old oak, close to the gnome hut. … Don’t get me started on that again… no, we did not steal that underground cavity away from the gnomes, we simply borrowed it on a permanent basis. We have an important mission, the gnomes don’t. No more discussion.

[One person leaves room.]

– Yikes. Ethics. What a useless fool. And did you notice the arrogance? Ethics! Reminds me of the self-aggrandizing, know-it-all materialists… ‘there is no evidence for a spiritual world’… oh the arrogance of the close-minded…

– I whole-heartedly agree with you, my friend. But we need to maintain our attitude of compassion towards the less fortunate. Even spirits spiralling downward on the evolutionary path need our commitment. Nobody else is going to rescue the world from its present disaster, unless we lead the way with our spiritual work. Now, where were we? It is Sune we’re talking about. We need to be careful to make sure that, within our waldorf organisations, there’s an awareness about the aspects which to critics may appear like seedy tactics but, in actual fact, are truly acts of compassion and love. We know all this, but given the present state of consciousness in the world… and some people take every opportunity to misunderstand and misinterpret and to spread hatred and defamation and libel and slander and to wage attacks against our movement.

– I’m aware of that. But I don’t think there’s a reason to worry. We expect him to do all those things people can misunderstand in his spare-time, in addition to the work he performs directly on our behalf. Basically, as far as his leisure time is concerned, he’ll continue doing what he has selflessly done up until this moment. Of course, we completely support him in his work on behalf of our movement and the entire humanity, but we’d better not talk about it.

– And if things should back-fire, we’ll still know, in our hearts, that we didn’t do anything wrong. On the spiritual level. We know it’s important information Sune brings into the world. He has access to sources few people seem to be able to read. In addition, he has the spiritual integrity and standing to be able to view websites which ‘stand out as distorted, twisted and revolting to most people’ without harm to his own consciousness soul. We, who are untrained to bear the animosity pouring out from these websites, should not even for one second venture to view them. The dangers could not be overemphasized here. He’s a resource we simply cannot squander. But he will have to help the karmic paths of students, mothers and academics in his free time.

– That’s the official story. And we’ll stick to it if someone asks.

– Yes. But he does an incredible job. We can’t interfere too much with his relentless efforts to collect personal data and write down analyses of these people who are in such a dire need of his empathic insights. Technically, though, we commission him to ‘monitor’ the state of things, that is, within waldorf criticism. Everything else, is officially a bonus, unofficially an expectation.

– Great job. I can’t wait to savour the fruits of this undertaking. They will have the delicious taste of victory.

– Let’s praise Sune’s hard work and efforts…

– … to quench opposition …

– … to promote the correct worldview …

– … spiritual enlightenment …

– And who said it would be pretty and kind anyway?

– Not me. Pretty is just a colour on the wall, isn’t it?

___________________________

* All the quotes are actual quotes, mined from the mind of a Steiner fanatic who lost the ability to separate fact from fiction many years ago. (Which means, as the acute observer has already concluded, that the quotes are actual but their content made up even though it was intended as, and believed to be, factual by the originator.)

** Peter Staudenmaier, historian, PhD at Cornell Uni. Dan Dugan, who is a vehicle for assorted ahrimanic and evil forces as well the secretary of PLANS.

*** Former waldorf parent who, like many others, abruptly learned to distrust anything that smelled of gnomes, archangels and eurythmists.

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24 thoughts on “an otherwise quite ordinary afternoon”

Zooey, I’m completely confused by this post. who is the originator, who are the people involved, where did the dialogue come from and how does such an unattributed series of mined quotes help us understand anything?

And LOL at the article, especially the pictures. One bee is a bit too much at times (at most times), but to have thousands of them all over you, all of them sending messages about hate-groups, witch-hunts, terrorist missiles… Well, one would feel a bit overwhelmed, to say the least.

Fiction is sometimes closer to the truth. For this reason I find myself consulting Agatha Christie’s M. Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective:

“Ah, Mme Mercurio, dear lady, I am so glad you have come to see me. This is an intriguing case. Lune Snordwall, once so air-borne on his little apoidean fantasies, now lies dead upon the floor of his apartment. There is no sign of forced entry, windows and doors are closed, the neighbours report no unusual noise. And yet his lines to the internet have been irretrievably cut. It is a mystery, n’est pas?”

“Indeed, Monsieur Poirot, and yet so many people wished he would.. stop. I understand the police are questioning Miss Zooey and also her Dog,”

“Oui Madame, though Mr Dog is saying little,”

Thetis shook her head,

“He will never talk. Although he may growl,”

“Assuredly,” agreed Poirot. “But the Inspector believes it may have been a perusal of Mlle Zooey’s ‘blog’ that caused the fatal blow to the ego of Herr Snordwall. Let us examine the facts of the case. On this fine evening in August there were several individuals who stood to gain much from his demise. There were many he had offended over a number of years, partly with his syntax. Academics, mothers, real bees.. but we must not forget the most obvious and yet overlooked suspect..”

Thetis gave a sharp intake of breath, her hand flying to her mouth,

“Oh, Monsieur Poirot, you cannot mean..?”

“Yes indeed, Mme Mercurio, I can, I do. It was the Swedish Waldorf Federation who themselves took the life of their bee-like employee. They alone had the motive and the means. For Herr Snordwall had become a thorn in their flesh, a ‘figure of fun’ we might say, dragging their reputation down into the mire. This they could not tolerate. This,” he shook his cane at her, “Was a crime that must be avenged,”

“But how?” asked Thetis,

“That, dear Madame, is easy. For I have only to use my little grey cells and all is clear. Let us look again at the locked room. Let us remember the lack of noise, of any disturbance within the apartment of Herr Snordwall. It is apparent that only an incorporeal agent could have done the deed, only the super-sensible had access to the scene..”

“You mean – an angel, arch-angel, gnome or other imaginary form did it? I am astonished!”

“No, Mme Mercurio, rest assured, such a thing is quite impossible. They had only to put into the head of Herr Snordwell that it was so. A vital clue, overlooked by the Inspector, reveals all,”

“Monsieur Poirot … was it the tweet from ‘Ahriman’ (verified account) containing only one word – ‘karma’?

“The very same. For it is clear, my dear sea nymph from the imagination of the Greeks of ancient times: they had only to convince the victim that his time was up for such an end to become a reality. Faith, dear Mme Mercurio, is a powerful matter.”

“Mais oui,” he said, “So that he releases Mlle Zooey and her faithful hound from his questioning. But as to the bringing to justice of the guilty.. ” he shrugged, “Who can know if it will be possible? The worm returns to its burrow in the earth, fearing the light of day,”

“Oh well, said Thetis, “Tea? And a slice of rather nice madeira?” Poirot assented.

And, of course, to Sune and the Waldorf Federation, the distinction between fact and fiction has long since ceased to matter. They’re knitting their own paradigm in a realm of blurred boundaries; lofty phantasy and sleazy reality is merging into one glorious whole, where the latter is easily ignored by the firm believer… it’s just that for the non-deluded, it’s pretty easy to poke holes in the overinflated balloon of self-flattery.

I made a mini poster to encourage people to take up the fight. I figured Frank’s art is a bit too scary. You wouldn’t want that bee to haunt you. (Although I’m more than willing to concede that Frank’s picture is realistic and mine is rather cute. But I really don’t want to scare people. Frank’s bee would scare even the most experienced pest control guys.)

Thanks, Melanie! Another gem of Higher Satire .. As the comment by Alicia: “There is only one true name inscribed upon the Holy Tail and that is Mr Dog.” And I guess being stuck in the thirties is good for Lower Knowledge of a certain spiritual movement ;-)